And that’s the problem that runs throughout the book. Despite spending so much time citing research about the benefits of having women in leadership positions, a lot of its recommendations focus on, to put it bluntly, making women more like men, without proper consideration of whether that would actually be a good thing. As I read, I wondered: why is it the women who should be copying the men? Why can’t it be the men who could be well served by taking a page out of an entirely different book: that of the very women Lean In is advising to change? What it is about women that men could emulate to make our workplaces, our families, and our society in general a better place?

I think that these are worthy questions. A big chunk of what is wrong with contemporary US society is the aggrandizement of arrogantly wealthy men. We do not need more overpaid CEOs, male or female. Instead we need to rethink what “leadership” ought to mean, and how we can start following leaders who are going the right way. Our current course looks too much like the following video of motorcyclists falling off a cliff one after another:

The hard part, of course, is finding leaders worth following, when all the (corporately owned) media are intent on increasing CEO worship.

I have some hope that the Maker movement will restore some leadership to those who create things, rather than to consumers and parasites, but it is currently too small and diffuse to have much effect on American culture as a whole.

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YES! The whole idea of feminism (as I see it) is to make the world a better place for everyone — including men. People ask me why we should make more accommodations for women and try to get more women into CS and my answer is that it’s not (entirely) about women, it’s about making CS (and other areas where women are underrepresented) a better place for everyone, and giving everyone an equal chance to participate in every aspect of their chosen lives. Let those dads come home at 4pm and greet their kids when they get off the school bus! Thanks for this, I’ll definitely be reading the review by Allworth.